My personal problem with Samba stems directly from CIFS; clear text protocol. Why does Windows still spray my user password hash across the network like this? While your grabbing your important document or sending your print job, anyone on the network can grab your login info and start working on it. Granted, complicated passwords make breaking the PreAth but the fact that I can get that information still already created security problems at home and work.

Thanks to a lack of support for ssh and sshfs on the Windows side (I think it's the only OS that doesn't offer support still), it's not even a choice. All my other platforms integrate safely on the network but I have to jump through hoops to come close to that same security as soon as Windows is involved.

I think the difference between the three though is this; WINE and Samba provide a function. Mono is a .net clone. It's a programming framework for the Studio.net folk.

Unlike Samba, I don't have personal investment in Mono or Gnome so I'm a third party observer on this one.